Inspired by Pinterest

At my school, the teachers wear jeans on Fridays, so I’ve been looking for some nice t-shirts that won’t look too dressed-down. When I saw this on Pinterest, I thought it would be a nice little tutorial. I clicked on the link, and found that I could buy the shirt for a mere $50. Um, no.

Why would I buy the shirt when I could make it? All I needed were a plain white tee and some permanent markers. A friend recently gifted me with a jumbo 24-pack of permanent markers, so I was all set. I gathered the following tools:

If the shirt is new, wash and dry it first. You’ll need a large piece of cardboard (or a giant coloring book) to put inside the shirt so the marker won’t soak through to the back. I used a yardstick to make sure my lines were straight. The colors are Bic Mark-It permanent markers in Rambunctious Red and Blue Skies Blue. Before doing my new shirt, I did an old one and then washed and dried it to see how the colors would hold. They did fine. Except for using the yardstick as a level, I just sort of eyeballed the whole thing. I did the red line first and didn’t measure the space between the blue lines.

Here’s my finished project:

Compared to the original, mine is wide-ruled, but that’s okay. I teach primary school! 😉

I think this shirt has so many possibilities…you could add writing to it, making it even more like a page in a notebook. As a gift, all the kids in the class could sign it. For now, though, I’m leaving mine as-is. What do you think?